Playbook not support AC3 audio

I have a bunch of avi files that will not play on my PLaybook (video awesome but no sound). I purchased an HDMI cable and can play only one of them with sound. I don't know of anyone that has an HD TV that does not have surround sound, which the AC3 audio format supports. Why would I have to pay for additional software to convert the audio down to mp3 (which is basic 2 speaker stereo) when the Playbook is designed for HDMI?

Should there not be some soft of built in conversion tool to convert to mp3 if playing on the playbook and support AC3 when connected to HDMI? Seems silly to have to manually convert everything to watch on my PB (or literally have to test everything first).

Well, if you have a home theater then for that you have something called Blu-Ray discs which get you all the surround etc. via your HDMI. 20GB a movie.. No one expects you to stream that kind of stuff or have it on your PlayBook..

Any which ways.. It's about licensing.. which obviously should not fall through.. just waste of some money to support piracy.. because ideally if you have AC3 data.. you should have the original source..

anyways..

There's Freemake which is free and converts to PlayBook supported format.. You can just keep the audio bitrate high in conversion and use Dolby PLII which basically converts your stereo input to surround output.. since you have Dolby support already for you wanting AC3..

It seems silly to not understand anything about AC3 and then complain about it.

AC3 is a codec designed for very high bandwidth bitrate playback. It is not designed for low bitrate playback such as internet video --- therefore NONE of the legal internet video stores (i.e. netflix, itunes video stores) use AC3 for their movies. Since AC3 sucks a lot of bandwidth and not suitable for internet videos --- the audio chipset manufacturers never implemented AC3 on hardware. Since it is never implemented on hardware, it would have sucked a lot of battery to do the decoding in software.

Dolby also wants a lot of money for AC3 licenses --- which NONE of the tablet makers/smartphone makers intended to pay (especially for a technology that is not suitable for portable devices).

The only software that would be available on ipad/android --- are from one man app companies that grab some sort of open source ac3 decoder projects and basically illegally (i.e. without paying Dolby a licensing fee) distribute them onto the ipad/android app store. These one man app companies get away with it because they are too poor for Dolby to sue them.

Well, if you have a home theater then for that you have something called Blu-Ray discs which get you all the surround etc. via your HDMI. 20GB a movie.. No one expects you to stream that kind of stuff or have it on your PlayBook..

Any which ways.. It's about licensing.. which obviously should not fall through.. just waste of some money to support piracy.. because ideally if you have AC3 data.. you should have the original source..

anyways..

There's Freemake which is free and converts to PlayBook supported format.. You can just keep the audio bitrate high in conversion and use Dolby PLII which basically converts your stereo input to surround output.. since you have Dolby support already for you wanting AC3..

This statement is pointless. I have tons of movies that i have ripped with AC3 5.1 support and they are no where close to the size of a full size bluray. Most and under 2 GBs in fact. It would be nice to be able to play them on a home theater where you can get full surround and also be able to play them on the PB without doing a conversion.

The people who complain loudest about this issue tend to be content pirates who are upset that their latest torrented copy of "xyz summer blockbuster or booby/slasher flick" won't play on their PB. Oh, and they're probably about 15 years old, so...

This statement is pointless. I have tons of movies that i have ripped with AC3 5.1 support and they are no where close to the size of a full size bluray. Most and under 2 GBs in fact. It would be nice to be able to play them on a home theater where you can get full surround and also be able to play them on the PB without doing a conversion.

You could have used the AAC format with surround sound. Even mp3 at 320 would do if you are using a Dolby receiver.

AC3 is proprietary Dolby format and licensing will forever be an issue.

Ripping should always be done in open source format for this very reason. If you know what you're doing, there should be no quality loss in the conversion.

I have tons of movies that i have ripped with AC3 5.1 support and they are no where close to the size of a full size bluray. Most and under 2 GBs in fact. It would be nice to be able to play them on a home theater where you can get full surround and also be able to play them on the PB without doing a conversion.

Why not mux in a second audio track of stereo then you have the best of both worlds.

I just used the free converter. Now I have sound, but the video quality is now crap and dropped my 2Gb avi file down to 700mb. Ugh.

You have no idea what you doing.. I wonder how are you even going to differentiate between AC3 audio..

Just choose mp4 in Freemake and pick the closest resolution to your existing file for the conversion. Right click, properties on the file and check resolution. In freemake pick the one same or lower than yours.

You should have an mp4 file with supported audio codecs which will run on your playbook.

Its not a good idea to play lot of movies from the playbook anyways.. Its your choice.

If you have a external hdd or even a pen drive support on tv it's more suitable..

I have a bunch of avi files that will not play on my PLaybook (video awesome but no sound). I purchased an HDMI cable and can play only one of them with sound. I don't know of anyone that has an HD TV that does not have surround sound, which the AC3 audio format supports.

HDMI has nothing to do with AC3,

and the PlayBook supports a variety of formats - that can give you 5.1 if you want...

1. I DO have a media centre (my Xbox) for streaming media at home.
2. I do NOT have a Blu Ray player. Who wants to buy media and have to store them like I did with DVDs? Not me.
3. I use the Playbook for travel. How annoying was it to try and watch the 3 movies I copied onto my Playbook on the plane without sound? Extremely.

What I was basically saying was that of all the avi files I have downloaded, they have all been AC3, so obviously there seems to be some sort of standard for the majority of users out there. Would have been nice to actually watch/hear them on my playbook without having to take hours to convert them.

I've tried the Avi type using the original video and it's now unwatchable. Trying the ipad 2 suggestion, which erks me just to have to choose that as an option (3 hours later still going).

With a PC, if there's a codec issue, you just download a codec. If I can download a codec to my Playbook then I'm obviously missing something.

There are two free PC programs I use. MediaInfo will tell you what the audio and video codecs your file uses before transferring to your PB. The second is Xvid4PSP, which will allow you to convert a full length movie in 7 to 10 minutes. Set video to "copy" and audio to AAC (or MP3).

1. I DO have a media centre (my Xbox) for streaming media at home.
2. I do NOT have a Blu Ray player. Who wants to buy media and have to store them like I did with DVDs? Not me.
3. I use the Playbook for travel. How annoying was it to try and watch the 3 movies I copied onto my Playbook on the plane without sound? Extremely.

What I was basically saying was that of all the avi files I have downloaded, they have all been AC3, so obviously there seems to be some sort of standard for the majority of users out there. Would have been nice to actually watch/hear them on my playbook without having to take hours to convert them.

I've tried the Avi type using the original video and it's now unwatchable. Trying the ipad 2 suggestion, which erks me just to have to choose that as an option (3 hours later still going).

With a PC, if there's a codec issue, you just download a codec. If I can download a codec to my Playbook then I'm obviously missing something.

If you had searched the subject a little you would have found it discussed many times in the past with some very good solutions.

AVIDemux is the software I use. Like Xvid4PSP you can convert the audio without converting the video. This saves a lot of time. Unlike AC3 these programs are both free.

AC3 is usually only used in pirated movies and TV shows and also being used a lot less than it used to be. MP4 is becoming the standard.

It seems silly to not understand anything about AC3 and then complain about it.

AC3 is a codec designed for very high bandwidth bitrate playback. It is not designed for low bitrate playback such as internet video --- therefore NONE of the legal internet video stores (i.e. netflix, itunes video stores) use AC3 for their movies. Since AC3 sucks a lot of bandwidth and not suitable for internet videos --- the audio chipset manufacturers never implemented AC3 on hardware. Since it is never implemented on hardware, it would have sucked a lot of battery to do the decoding in software.

Dolby also wants a lot of money for AC3 licenses --- which NONE of the tablet makers/smartphone makers intended to pay (especially for a technology that is not suitable for portable devices).

The only software that would be available on ipad/android --- are from one man app companies that grab some sort of open source ac3 decoder projects and basically illegally (i.e. without paying Dolby a licensing fee) distribute them onto the ipad/android app store. These one man app companies get away with it because they are too poor for Dolby to sue them.

ITunes sells HD videos that have both ac3 and aac audio tracks. The ac3 decoding would take place by your television or Apple TV. If using an iPad, the aac track would play.

Yes MP4 is a container that can hold AC3 audio.. But the Playback of this file will be very limited across devices.. Forget portable devices completely.

AC3 is not a portable device format.. Just like you don't carry WAV files on your portable music player..

Sure music players can support WAV files, but what they cannot support is a multi-channel WAV. It will play noise.. So you can't say that they should give Multi-channel WAV support because you downloaded that from the Internet and now want to plug-in your music player to the surround sound system and want 5.1 surround audio..

For the OPs thread title - I don't even see any reason why PlayBook should support AC3 audio. Haha my PlayBook is just 32 GB.. 28 GB of what I can use.. I have The Godfather at 20+ GB (each).. obv with DTS audio.. but even with AAC some BDRips go pretty high in size.. and then AC3 wouldn't help there.. Point is.. If you go from 20GB to 2GB - AAC, AC3, DTS should be the last of your concerns.. You should get a file which has the most compatibility. Which obv is AAC..

i wonder why there are open AC3 decoders (like used in mplayer or VLC) that dont have any legal problems with Dolby? i mean VLC is a huge project if it would be illegal it would have been shut down. Why is it impossible for rim to base there videoplayer on an open player?

Anyway, i find this annoying too. I have ripped my whole dvd collection to h.264 + surround ac3 a year ago for my new HTPC and if i want to watch them on my playbook i have to convert the audio track. this doesnt take that long on my 4 core PC but its still a bit annoying.
Hope they port mplayer or VLC over in the future.

i wonder why there are open AC3 decoders (like used in mplayer or VLC) that dont have any legal problems with Dolby? i mean VLC is a huge project if it would be illegal it would have been shut down. Why is it impossible for rim to base there videoplayer on an open player?

Anyway, i find this annoying too. I have ripped my whole dvd collection to h.264 + surround ac3 a year ago for my new HTPC and if i want to watch them on my playbook i have to convert the audio track. this doesnt take that long on my 4 core PC but its still a bit annoying.
Hope they port mplayer or VLC over in the future.

thanks for the links, intresting reads.
Wonder if a app released in the official app world would be OK, i mean there are 3rd Party players released in Apple Appstore or Android Marketplace even tho both are US Companies. So RIM could port the player, public release the compiling changes, and voila but i doubt this would happen, but wait didnt RIM start an XBMC port (based on mplayer as far as i know)

Sadly all those opensource ports project seem to be abondend for some month now.

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